Moxie Gardener

Sweet peppers start out green and depending on their variety, change to red, orange, yellow, purple, or even brown.

Fresh summertime sweet peppers are plentiful at supermarkets and farmer’s markets everywhere. Their bright colors beckon you to look, smell, and buy them.

Sweet peppers are known scientifically as Capsicum annum and are members of the nightshade family. They are usually plump and bell shaped, featuring either 3 or 4 lobes, although other varieties of sweet peppers are more tapered and have no lobes.

The four different types of sweet peppers are bell, banana, cubanelle and pimento. Like their hot relatives, they also originated in the Americas. The word “chile” is from an Aztec word, “nahuatl,” although aboriginal South Americans called it “aji.” Archeological evidence shows that Peruvians have been eating wild peppers since about 7000 BC and have cultivated them since approximately 6100 BC.

Start sweet peppers from seed indoors about 6 to 8 weeks before the average date of your last spring frost. Harden off before transplanting to the garden, which should be done when you transplant your tomatoes. Sweet peppers will not grow well in cold, wet soil and do not grow when nighttime temperatures dip below 50°.

Space pepper plants 18 to 24 inches apart in rows 24 to 36 inches apart. For intensive spacing, plant 14 to 18 inches apart in all directions. Side dress with granulated fertilizer when planting and add a scoop of compost to the planting hole. Peppers thrive in well-drained fertile soil and need consistent moisture. Apply liquid fertilizer after the first round of infant peppers have set and continue to fertilize weekly throughout the growing season.

All peppers need consistent moisture to set fruit. Lack of this or a drought can cause blossoms or even infant fruits to drop off the plant. Hot dry winds and soil can prevent the fruit from forming in the first place.

If you are a smoker, wash your hands before handling pepper plants. It is possible to transmit the tobacco mosaic disease (if present in your cigarette tobacco) to your garden sweet peppers, as they are both members of the nightshade family.

Stuffed peppers are one of the most popular way to serve summer’s bounty of fresh sweet peppers. Most cultures have their own recipes but all usually feature a filling of rice and some type of meat or protein, along with their favorite herbs and spices. There are many other recipes which use peppers in many creative ways. Their use as an integral component in recipes has become almost as commonplace as onions and garlic.

Within 50 years of being brought back to Spain, sweet (and hot) peppers had spread throughout all of Europe and the Mediterranean region. Soon after that, Portuguese explorers had successfully introduced peppers to Africa, India, Southeast Asia, China and Japan.

Sweet peppers are one of the most widely used vegetables/seasonings in the world.

Every garden should have at least one hot and one sweet pepper.  Peppers are easy to grow and aren’t really bothered by pests or diseases.

The worst thing that ever happened to my peppers was the blossoms dropped off without forming fruit.  No problem.  Just use a small paintbrush to manually pollinate the flowers.  It jumpstarts the pepper plant and it begins to grow lots of peppers!

Sometimes peppers won’t keep their blossoms and make fruit if they’re watered too much.  If this happens to your peppers, hold back on watering, except for what Mother Nature provides, and watch the fruits form.

Peppers should receive a weak solution of liquid fertilizer every other week.  Too much fertilizer causes the leaves to grow lush at the expense of setting fruit.

Don’t forget to pick regularly.  If you leave the first few peppers on the plant to turn red it may stop producing.  Pick the first three or four peppers while they’re still green and leave the later ones to ripen to red, yellow, orange or whatever color they will eventually turn.  Pepper plants make a lot of fruit so they’ll be plenty.

I’ve found peppers to be one of the most forgiving vegetables in the garden.  They’re perfect for the beginner and also do very well in pots.  As long as you give peppers a super rich soil they’ll even give you a few fruits in partial shade.  But peppers love hot weather so they’ll do much better in full sun.

Here’s to the mouth-tingling delight of hot peppers!